A section of Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) beak, circa 1500

A number of dodos were shipped from Mauritius in the first half of the 17^th century. One was spotted in by a theologian in 1638, when the bird was exhibited as a public attraction in a small building not far from Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Soon after her death the dodo was sent to a taxidermist and, at some point between 1638 and 1652, the mounted remains came into the possession of the Tradescant family. John Tradescant Senior was a royally favoured naturalist and ardent collector of specimens and curios. Upon his death in 1638 his son supervised his father’s vast private collection in Lambeth. John Tradescant Junior died in 1662. The collection was inherited by his friend, Elias Ashmole, and on March 20th, 1683, was moved to the new Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. In around 1693, its habitat destroyed and its eggs prey to new predators, the last surviving dodo died somewhere in the increasingly sparse forests of Mauritius. In 1755 an inspection revealed that infestation had led to significant deterioration of the Oxford Dodo. Feather mites and other pests had got to her – a common problem with stuffed specimens. Most of her torso, wings and plumage were all but eaten away. With little but a desiccated husk remaining, only the head and one foot were judged to be salvageable, the rest was burned. Today, this is all that remains of her.

This particular beak was found with other dodo bones in a Mauritian swamp known as the Mare aux Songes probably during the 1860s and the findings at this time gave rise to the inclusion by Lewis Carroll of a dodo in his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.